Chapter 1

Third week in June

Vitas Kosloff lay shivering, naked, and chained to the damp earth of the old mushroom cellar amidst the smell of shit, fertilizer, and fungi. He had a rumbling cough, and his chest felt heavy and congested. The drug they’d administered to prevent him from the change was potent. They had descended upon him again yesterday, the man with the injection and three Enforcers with a chair. He’d tried to fight them, but he was broken and weary. The Enforcers held him up in the chair and injected the drug into his thigh. They took away the chair, leaving him to lie in the mushrooms and dust.

At first, he didn’t know what the injection did, only that he had no energy after they administered it. Then one evening, Anatoly, one of Chernof’s Betas, left the door open a crack. If Vitas could have shifted, he might have been able to slip out of his chains and escape through the door. He tried to make the change to wolf. No matter how many attempts he made, he couldn’t shift. Sometime after that, he developed a cold, and he realized the drug rendered him almost human.

Vitas sighed. If he were a true human, he would be dead by now, and his suffering would end. Wolves never got sick, but his immune system was severely compromised by the shot they had been forcing on him. Now, he alternated between fever and chills, and he was unable to shift to his other form. He thought he had pneumonia, but he still wouldn’t yield to Alpha Chernof’s demands. Vitas refused to confirm to the Russian loup garou packs that the First Alpha, Fydor Leonovich Chernof, was his Mate.

Chernof and his Enforcers came to his parents’ small Moscow apartment. It was there the Russian First claimed that Vitas was his fated Mate. Vitas knew he lied.

“Alpha, I feel no attraction to you, I don’t see the beginnings of a tether. You’re not my Mate. There is some kind of misunderstanding.”

Vitas’ father, Evegny, stepped between Alpha Chernof and his son. “Alpha, be reasonable. He is not meant for you. Whatever his gift, as his Alpha, you may order him to use it, but you are not his Mate.”

Chernof backed off. “I’ll be back, and he better be ready to come with me. I have business to attend to first.”

They continued to live a small life in their dingy little Moscow apartment until the next week when the home pack discovered that the government had imprisoned their Alpha, Alpha Davidoff.

For four years, Alpha Davidoff was imprisoned, and after he emigrated, Chernof left them alone. Vitas drew closer to his twenty-fifth birthday with the former Second, Alpha Davidoff, no longer available to protect his family.

Since he had left them alone, the Kosloff family thought that Chernof had forgotten about them and made plans to leave Russia. Then, three months ago, they saw Alpha Chernof and his men watching Vitas come home from the grocery. Thinking about it, Evegny realized that since Alpha Chernof’s visit, there was always a strange wolf in the neighborhood near their apartment. The Kosloff family recognized he had spied on them for years. Evegny told Vitas that now they had no recourse. They needed to leave, immediately. Their time had run out. His family packed their meager belongings; Vitas’ in a small satchel. He, his father, and mother fled into the night. They made it as far as St. Petersburg before Chernof’s Enforcers arrived to take them off the train.

The entire family was thrown into a car, bound, gagged, and dragged back to Moscow with Chernof’s men using papers acquired from the government ordering their detention in Russia. Brought before the First at his dacha just outside of Moscow, Evegny protested and asked, as was his right, for the Alpha to convene the full council.

There were led into a pine paneled room with dirty cushioned chairs. Chernof sat at his desk smoking a cigar and laughed, “You fool. I control the council, and now I control your boy. Don’t say another word.” The Enforcers laid their hands on Vitas, and he fought like a man possessed. His father told him to keep struggling, that his Mate would come. Vitas fought like a madman, but in the end, they prevailed. But to assuage his injured pride, he reveled in one small triumph. He had done some damage to Chernof’s Enforcers despite being small, even for an Omega

“Vitas, come quietly, or there will be consequences,” Chernof hissed. He rose from his chair and walked over to the family.

He looked over to his father for guidance. Evegny shook his head no. Vitas took a deep breath and stayed strong. He kept up the struggle while disregarding his injuries.